Al-Safadi

Khalīl ibn Aybak al-Ṣafadī, or Ṣalaḥ al-Dīn al-Ṣafadī (; full name - Ṣalaḥ al-Dīn Abū al-Ṣafa Khalīl ibn Aybak ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-Albakī al-Ṣafari al-Damascī Shafi'i. (1296 – 1363) was a Turkic Mamluk author and historian. He studied under the historian and Shafi'i scholar, al-Dhahabi.

He was born in Safad, Palestine under Mamluk rule. His wealthy family afforded him a broad education, memorising the Quran and reciting the books of Hadith. He excelled in the social sciences of grammar, language, philology and calligraphy. He painted on canvas, and was especially passionate about literature. He taught himself poetry, its systems, transmitters and meters.

His teachers

Among Ṣafadī’s many teachers from Safad, Damascus, Cairo and Aleppo were:

• Al-ḤāfÄ«z Fatḥ al-DÄ«n ibn Sayyid al-Nās (d.734AH / 1333), with whom he studied literature in Cairo.
• Ibn al-Nabatah Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-FarqÄ« al-Maá¹£rÄ« (d.768AH / 1367)
• AbÅ« Hayyan al-GharnatÄ« (d.745AH / 1345); with whom he studied grammar and philology.
• MaḥmÅ«d ibn Salmān Ibn Fahd (d.725AH / 1325-26), author of Ḥusn al-tawassul ilá á¹£ināʻat al-tarassul () and narrated much of his poetry.
• Judge Badr al-DÄ«n ibn Jamāt, Muḥammad ibn IbrāhÄ«m ibn Sa’d al-KattanÄ« (d. 733AH / 1333-34).
• Taqi al-Din al-Subki (d.756AH / 1356-57)
• The ḤadÄ«th AbÅ« Al-NÅ«n YÅ«nus ibn IbrāhÄ«m al-Dabusi (d.729AH / 1329-30)
• Hafiz Jamal al-Din Yusuf ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Mizzi (d.742AH / 1342), and studied by the ḤadÄ«th in Dar al-Hadith Ashrafieh in Damascus.
• Al-Ḥafiz Shams al-DÄ«n Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Uthman al-DhahabÄ« (d.749AH / 1347-48); with whom he studied the Hadith and history.

Books

• Ikhtirāʿ al-Khurāʿ ("Invention of Absurdity"); on scholastic pedantry, a satirical work in the tradition of Arabic parodies, it is one of his most famous works.
• Kitāb al-WāfÄ« bi-l-Wafayāt () (29 vols.); biographical dictionary of notable people.
• Nakt al-Humyān fÄ« Nukat al-Umyān, biographies of notable blind people, with a section on the causes of blindness.
• Al-Ghayth al-Musajam fi Sharh Lamiyyat-Ajam (Flowing Desert Rains in the Commentary upon the L-Poem of the Non-Arabs); an encyclopedic commentary on Togharayi's Lamiyyat al-Ajam.
• al-Ḥusn aá¹£-á¹£arīḥ fÄ« miʾat malīḥ ('Pure Beauty: on one hundred handsome lads'), also a solo-authored maqāṭīʿ-collection composed between 1337 and 1338
• Al-Rawḍ al-bāsim wa-l-Ê¿arf an-nāsim ('The Smiling Garden and the Wafting Fragrance'), a 444-poem solo-authored maqāṭīʿ-collection in forty-six chapters composed sometime before 1355
• Alḥān as-sawājiÊ¿ bayn al-bādÄ« wa-l-murājiÊ¿ ('Tunes of Cooing Doves, between the Initiator and Responder [in Literary Correspondence]'), an epistolary anthology
• Kashf al-ḥāl fÄ« waá¹£f al-khāl ('Revealing the Situation about Describing Beauty Marks')
• Rashf al-zulāl fÄ« waá¹£f al-hilāl ('A Sip of Pure Water: describing the crescent moon')
• Ladhdhat al-samÊ¿ fÄ« waá¹£f al-dam ('Pleasing the Ears by Describing the Tears'), also known as Kitāb TashnÄ«f as-samÊ¿ bi-nsikāb ad-damÊ¿

Notes

The Internet Archive hosts a copy of كتاب الوافي بالوفيات (Kitab Al-Wafi Bi-Al-Wafayat) at https://archive.org/details/FP49931.

References

External links

• Works on Al-á¹¢afadÄ« listed in Mamluk Bibliography Online